Trilingual Code Mixing Between Tamil, Sinhala And English

Abstract

Trilingualism is a common phenomenon in the contemporary society as code mixing between the three languages; Sinhala, Tamil and English, can be considered as important in a multi-cultural society. This paper analyzes ‘how a child code mixes using three languages focusing on what is the most used word category, which languages are mostly used and the possible reasons for code mixing. For this case study, a three and half year-old trilingual child who lives in an urban area; Western province in Sri Lanka was observed and authentic speech samples were recorded, over a period of three weeks. The implications of this research are; the code-mixing patterns cannot be influenced by the dominant language of a trilingual and the languages they code mix depend on the person to whom they are speaking.